masjid al-haram

Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām
"The Sacred Mosque") is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca (Makkah), it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while performing daily prayers and is Islam's holiest place. The mosque is also known as the Grand Mosque.^[1]
The current structure covers an area of 356,800 square metres (88.2 acres) including the outdoor and indoor praying spaces and can accommodate up to four million Muslim worshipers during the Hajj period, one of the largest annual gatherings of people in the world.
Literally, Kaaba in Arabic means square house. The word Kaaba may also be derivative of a word meaning a cube. Some of these other names include:

• Al-Bait ul Ateeq which, according to one interpretation, means the earliest and ancient. According to another interpretation, it means independent and liberating.
• Al-Bayt ul Haram which may be translated as the honorable or holy house.

The whole building is constructed out of the layers of grey blue stone from the hills surrounding Mecca. The four corners roughly face the four points of the compass. In the eastern corner is the Hajr-al-Aswad (the Black Stone), at the northern corner lies the Rukn-al-Iraqi (The Iraqi corner), at the west lies Rukn-al-Shami (The Levantine corner) and at the south Rukn-al-Yamani (The Yemeni corner). The four walls are covered with a curtain (Kiswah). The Kiswa is usually of black brocade with the Shahada outlined in the weave of the fabric. About three quarters of the way up runs a gold embroidered band covered with Qur'anic text.